03/22/2022
London
Day 1.
Spring Break.
The flights to Panama were full, so we’re off to LHR on the overnight nonstop. Maybe. We’re still sitting at the gate while they fix a tire and then load fuel, in that order. I like the 787 but this one feels cramped. I love looking out at that huge magnificent wing anticipating it gently flopping around. We haven’t been to London in a while and our plan is to stay in an airbnb near Greenwich and visit the Royal Observatory and the Crossness sewage pump station, which houses he largest steam engine in the world, capable of pumping over 70,000 gallons of raw sewage every minute! We both have a list of other things we want to as well, and there’s not enough time for all of them.
We took the train to the plane (RTD light rail) for $10/each. It took forever! I don’t understand why they are so slow. When the doors on the train close they make this ear piercing warning for about ten seconds. Why?
Overall, I like what they’re doing with the Great Hall remodel at DIA and discovered a new feature: an outdoor observation deck with nice patio furniture, two gas fire pits, and a privacy pit for dogs in need. There were 18 deicing trucks on the west side but only a couple of planes got de-iced – all UA.
Day 2.
The overnight flight was cramped and uncomfortable but it got us here. First thing is an Oyster card for bus, train, and boat transportation. It came preloaded with £15 plus £5 for the card. Later we learned that when your Oyster card is low you can just “tap” with the credit card you bought it with. A sim card for my phone is good for 25gb and 30 days. Cost is £25.
The tube is hideously noisy and I am going to need to buy some foam earplugs. Seriously, screechy, bone scraping loud. I hate it.
It took about 3 hours to go the 25 miles to our 3rd floor Airbnb which is actually in Woolwich, not Greenwich. These two towns are pronounced without the second “W” so, Woolich and Grenich.
Greenwich is beautiful and green and lush with daffodils and tulips. The landscape is dotted with manors, museums, ballrooms, university halls, and mansions every where you look. Greenwich is the birthplace of Queen Elizabeth, Henry VIII, and Queen Mary. Woolwich, where we are staying, is where the sewage pump station is. Small shops with galvanized roll-up doors, corrosion, peeling paint, and litter. Think of East Colfax or maybe South Federal. The population are nearly all immigrants and they don’t look like me. I rather enjoy the diversity, but not the accents. Everyone, even the natives, sound like they are trying to sing with a mouth full of marbles. I am constantly saying “what?”
Our airbnb hosts are really nice and rather attractive while they takes us through the ropes of saving energy. Rationing energy is a thing. The hot water heater is a heat pump of some sort and runs all day in order to make enough luke warm water for a quick shower. If you want hot water, for like a real shower, you turn on an electric heater about 20 minutes before hand. This heater is energy rationed, as are the room heaters, and will not run for long. Don’t forget to turn it off or you will not have hot water for tomorrow. England has huge natural gas reserves but they need to be fracked, which is now illegal. Wales is full of coal. Gasoline, sorry, petrol costs $8.80 per gallon. Energy prices are going up 54% next week. I don’t understand.
As is my custom, I like to get my hair cut while traveling. I found a mobile, three chair barber shop trailer. Think about a burrito wagon only serving hair cuts. He did a good job – costs about £11.
He said he was from Kurdistan. I knew that Kurdistan is not a country so I gently prodded him about what part of Kurdistan. All I got was Kurdistan. He would not admit being from any part of any other country.
Lunch was a greasy middle eastern fish & chips kind of hole in the wall. Alicia wasn’t happy, plus the owner tried to scam me after the credit card went through by finding me in the square and saying it didn’t. He must have sensed I was right off the boat, but this isn’t my first boat. We’ve become a little jaded. A pigeon dropped a bomb on Alicia’s hair but a wet paper towel and a beer brought back her smile.
Dinner was a picnic in our room. Several cheeses, some crackers, good bread, and an apple with a bottle of French Cabernet Sauvignon. Yum.
Day 3.
We woke up to an asthmatic pigeon right outside our window that would just not shut up. Alicia was wishing for a BB gun. After breakfast we caught a bus and headed to the observatory. It took about an hour to go the 3.4 miles there. The bus dropped us off at the Royal Naval Museum, so, what the heck. National museums in England are free. I’m not really a navy kind of guy but WOW, this had the best exhibits I have ever seen in any museum.
The 15 minute walk from the Naval museum to the observatory was uphill and guess what! It was closed for renovation. I flew 4,683 miles to see the observatory and it’s closed. I have to laugh at myself and then have a look around for the prime meridian. While looking for it I asked a well dressed nicely coiffed woman for clues about it’s whereabouts. She cheerfully said “let me show you” and led the way. She was American and proudly told us she’s lived in London, NY and Seattle. I desperately wanted to tell her we lived in Silt, Colorado. You either get the joke or you don’t.
The prime meridian line on the sidewalk and up the wall at the observatory is not the real one.
The real one, used for everything, is about 300 feet away. Since the prime meridian is an arbitrary line why not choose the one at the observatory? Again, I don’t understand.
A seafaring island empire needs a top notch navy that can accurately navigate the globe, and that’s what the observatory is all about. The large red ball can be seen from just about everywhere on the Thames (pronounced “Tems”). The ball drops at precisely 12:00 GMT every day, as determined by the observatory. The observatory keeps track of the precise time and the precise location of celestial objects used for navigation. It would be hard to overstate the importance of the observatory to the Empire. If you have an accurate clock and the tables produced by the observatory you can accurately determine your location anywhere on the globe. It was the GPS equivalent of it’s day..
Next was the art in the “Queens House.” The guards here actually converse with the visitors and are full of knowledge. Our favorite guard was “California Dave.” His degree was about “art communication,” or something like that. Alicia says he’s cute. He was quite knowledgeable about the building, it’s occupants, art, and history. He also made it fun. He suggested, and took, the photo below of us sitting below a very famous painting.
The Trafalgar pub down the street provided an expensive dinner on a picnic table overlooking the Thames.
A great day.
Day 4.
Westminster Abbey took all day. Well, after we got there. Google says the 9.6 miles can be traveled in about 45 minutes. It took about double that. We have been using the “Uber Boat”, AKA the “RB”. We get on at the Royal Arsenal dock and it can really fly, but it stops about 6 times along the way spending as much time docking, loading, and un-docking as it does motoring. I don’t really mind because I hate the tube so much, plus the scenery is better. Cost for the Uber boat is about £8.40 ($11.17) per person each way.
Right where you get off the boat is a homeless tent – kind of a deluxe double wide. This is the first we have seen of any homeless. It lacked the U.S. requisite pile of garbage nearby. This is one of only two homeless camps we saw. What are they doing different?
Closer to the Abbey, a young man was on a hunger strike demanding “climate action.” They take global warming seriously here. I can’t help but wonder what they will all think in their later years when all of the catastrophe they expect hasn’t happened? I have no sympathy for him.
We paid extra for a one hour guided tour. Worth every penny. I never get tired of these grand churches. Prince Phillip’s funeral service will be held here in two days. Yes, he died about 11 months ago – but we know how the traffic is getting here. The guided tour allowed us to climb the stairs behind the “high alter.” There are several very important tombs up here but I was more interested in the two chairs that are brought out for the Queen and royal consort to sit on when they attend service. They are just old wooden chairs with some worn yellow velvet on the arms. I wanted to sit on one of them but there was some tape in the way[1]. We did get to sit in the “royal quire” where lesser royalty can attend and the men’s quire (mostly prepubescent boys) perform with all the little red lamps. Our guide explained why they spell it that way, but I don’t remember.
This church is a royal peculiar. Their word, not mine. It means that the monarch, not the diocese, has jurisdiction. There are only a hand full of these left.
The church has many parts. The Nave, the Quire, the North Ambulatory Chapels, South Ambulatory Chapels, High Alter, Jubilee Galleries (cost extra but worth it). They have on display one of the 24 surviving Magna Carta’s! There are Cloisters, a Pyx Chamber, the Chapter House, and it just goes on and on. The 700 year old Coronation Chair sits at the north end of the Nave. A fella named Cromwell who, for a short time, was the head of the short lived republic and placed the coronation chair outside where it suffered abuse. Lovers carved their initials in it and such. It is not in terribly good shape, but has character.
Speaking of Cromwell he is one of the many thousands of people (nearly all men) buried here. Cromwell is buried in alibi, which means “somewhere else”. Apparently he was dug up and his remains tossed to the wind. He deserves worse.
We stayed for service at 5 p.m. so we could listen to the organ and the male choir. Both were spectacular. My excuse for leaving the service early was the incense. Trust me, a legitimate excuse.
Here is a very good guide to the Abbey.
Dinner was fish & chips at a bar known for it’s fresh Guinness followed by a long trip home.
Day 5.
This morning I can still taste incense and have the stuffiness and headache that comes with it. We’re off to the National Gallery. An incredible collection of Dutch and Italian painters. Caravaggio never disappoints but my favorites were the two self portraits by Rembrandt done 31 years apart. Those alone would have been worth the trip. We actually left rather early because of sensory overload. After a couple of hours the paintings started to just blend together.
Next was Camden Market. We had trouble getting there because the buses stopped running due to a large anti war protest so we had to take the tube The market is a spectacle to be seen. Dozens of food shops of every kind, tee shirts, art, jewelry, etc … and people. Thousands and thousands of people all having a good time. When it was time to head home we tried for the tube because it’s faster but were afraid of the crowds. This is not a trivial thing. If we got separated, which was likely, we would have just had to find our way home separately. We are a team – not lone rangers. It took us about three hours to to travel the 12.3 miles home via buses and the river boat.
We were both tired when we got back to our Airbnb. Just the hours spent commuting wears on you, and we aren’t getting any younger. Alicia passed out kinda early. I was climbing into bed when some nimrod started blasting horrible electronica “music” from the courtyard parking lot right below us. It was around midnight when I got dressed and headed down to confront whoever it was. This seemed like a good way to get my ass kicked. I thought maybe a policeman would be patrolling the commercial area on the East side. Surely there’s a noise ordinance that needs to be enforced. I walked around the block but only found a few junkies and several miscreants hanging around. I was exhausted and quite angry when I walked up to the drivers side ready for a confrontation – then realized they drive on the wrong side of the car and walked around to the other side. All I did was stand there with my arms crossed and put some stink eye on him. He rolled up the his windows and turned it down. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Day 6.
This morning brought some proper London weather. Just some fog that burned off by mid morning. This is our last day of sightseeing. Tomorrow is reserved for getting to Heathrow and getting a Covid test.
We are too tired to go to London today so let’s start our sight seeing at the sewage pump. Guess what? It too is closed. The two things I planned to do on this trip are both closed. Arg..
Greenwich is only about an hour away (3.3 miles) by bus and there are many things to see there, starting with the Cutty Sark. The Cutty Sark was a revolutionary merchant ship because of it’s speed. It had a lower payload but could make Australia in as little as 77 days! It became obsolete when the Suez Canal opened and steam ships ran circles around her. (there’s not much wind in The Mediterranean). The afternoon was just spent wandering the shops, enjoying the weather, and drinking beer in a local pub. I have been really enjoying good beer. Bitters, that is. Why can’t I drink this at home?
Day 7.
The last fun thing we get to do is walk the Woolwich foot tunnel. The elevator at either end takes you about 100’ or so below ground and then you walk the 1,600’ to the other side of the Thames, look around, and walk back. There were about a dozen or so other people in the tunnel. I enjoyed it.
Breakfast and then we’re off to Heathrow for our Covid test and then to an airport hotel for tomorrow’s 11:20 a.m. flight. We started at about 10:00 a.m. and got to the hotel around 5:00 p.m.. Yes, it took us that long (7 hours) to travel 28 miles and get a simple test along the way! I knew just getting to Heathrow was not going to be easy but this is ridiculous! Our airport hotel is 1.6 miles from the terminal and took about 30 minutes at a cost of £6.50 ($8.65) per person each way.
The mandatory “Travel Ready Covid Test” was a nightmare. First, with your smartphone, you have to open an online account. Then sign in and choose a test time (I chose about 30 minutes from now), enter your names, birthdays, gender, passport #, and address. It should have taken about ten minutes. It took 40 minutes. After entering all the information you hit submit and you get a non specific error message and have to start all over, and over, and over, and over, etc…. There were a lot of other people fighting with it as well. No assistance available anywhere. A young woman standing next to us suddenly shouted “Oh, for FUCKS SAKE!” then put her phone away, grabbed her wheelie and calmly walked away. I wondered if she was headed for a bar or a gun store? We finally got the test and eagerly awaited our results via email. Alicia has had a slight sore throat and small cough. If we tested positive there is a mandatory confinement period of 10 days which we can’t afford. Tomorrow’s flight is the only one this week that has open seats. The test created a lot of stress and anxiety. The Covid test is a requirement of the U.S. CDC., not the UK.
Day 8.
Going home.
Our flight leaves at 11:20 a.m. but we head out early early because we can’t upload the Covid test results to the f*/&%ng UA app. The UA app has some serious issues that I won’t go into. Hopefully someone at the ticket counter can help us. They didn’t even try. They glanced at the email and checked us in. Stressful, but like a couple of dogs we got first class. Junk yard dogs that is. First class is not what it used to be. No champagne or endless mimosas before takeoff. No warm nuts. No wine list to accompany your dinner. No appetizer tray. No cheese & fruit tray. A microwaved TV dinner under plastic, a can of Coke or whatever, followed by nothing. No desert tray with coffee. Certainly no fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. A bigger seat – that’s it.
We got home at dinner time so I jumped in my car and headed to Chipotle, about 1.7 miles away. It took 4 minutes. I’m glad to be home.
Some random observations:
- Chips (AKA french fries) come with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They are usually good but I don’t think they are Idaho Russet. Probably inferior Irish spuds.
- They care very much about their hens. All restaurants have a sign that says how their hens live. Free range, indoors, outdoors, which set of standards they follow, etc…
- No one cares a hoot about people with Hyperacysus.
- Every restaurant we ate at served fresh squeezed OJ. Wonderful!
- In this blog I refer to the “English.” Should I be saying British?
The following opinion is based on biased casual observation.
I don’t know how the English identify as being English.
Immigrants, at least around London, seem to out number the natives. Do the immigrants mostly identify as English? They seem to fit in quite well judging by their behavior, if not their appearance.
Black women wearing hijabs walking their children to school wearing those ridiculous English uniforms. Do they identify as English? If so, are they glad to be English, or are they just glad to be the hell away from wherever they are from? There can’t be a shared history but there appears to be a shared culture.
But about that culture?
Germany has a sort of collective guilt about Nazis and WWII to this day. I can detect no guilt whatsoever from the English about their empire that brutally dominated 1/3 of the planet. The many atrocities that were committed not just in Ireland but the whole world. I was appalled by reading Churchill’s casual dismissal of India’s need for merchant shipping to prevent mass starvation after India had served the allies in WWII so well. My Kurd barber refusing to acknowledge geopolitical lines all messed up by the English. Hong Kong and the opium wars in China. The current Israel/Palestine issue largely caused by England. Egypt. The list goes on. Yet no hint of grief or regret or guilt or even an acknowledgement that any of it was wrong. Is it that they believe that the beneficial economic and industrial development in their colonies and territories outweighs the rest? Or do they ignore their historic sins for the same reason I refuse to accept responsibility for slavery? I don’t know.
One thing I do know is that they are doing something right about homelessness. We in the U.S. need to figure it out.
[1] I once sat in Catherine De Medici’s chair at Chenonceau. I am not aiming for Nancy Pelosi’s chair.
Random photos below.
Travel With A Curmudgeon 